Reference no: EM132568249

Look carefully at the author's use of language conventions, citations, and essay structure, including its title, thesis, introduction, conclusion, endnotes, and works cited.

Once you have read and evaluated the quality of this paper, rewrite it, making any appropriate corrections. When you are finished, provide a brief note explaining some of your most important corrections and why you made them?

Studying Literature in Grade 12

This essay will prove that graduating students in Ontario should only study Canadian literature in a Grade 12 English course. While good writers exist in all cultures, Ontario students should only study Canadian writers. Because we need to become more familiar with our literature. Three reasons for this are; the need to focus on our own Canadian culture despite being surrounded by other cultures, the need to promote and establish our own writers, and the need to encourage younger Canadian authors.

Students in Ontario taking English should only study Canadian literature because we are completely swamped by the American culture around us. This is a Canadian tradition because we have always been a "branch plant" of another country starting with England and France meaning that our own culture has never had the chance to develop since we have always been under the thumb of a more powerful foreign culture. So, for years, a student in Ontario would study Shakespeare and other British writers: today they may also study American authors such as Fitzgerald. But many schools limit a students exposure to the Canadian novel to ISP reading lists. In this sense, Canada is an attic in which we have stored American and British literature without considering our own. 1 No wonder a Canadian student has problems appreciating there culture.

Often what Canadian literature is studied is very old. This includes works such as Mordecai's Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz or Lawrences Stone Angel. Fifth Business, which was published in 1970 - over 35 years ago - is still on many courses of study in Gr. 12 classrooms. Atwood's Handmade's Tale the most recent of these books was published in 1985; over ten years ago. Again while most teachers allow and may even encourage a student to focus on more modern Canadian books for their ISP, his classroom experience is usually limited to studying these golden oldies.

Then there is the issue of these authors being primarily white, English Canadian and not reflective of our modern multicultural society. As Robertson Davies stated, " Canada is not going to have a national literature in the mode of those European lands where a long history has bound the people together, and where a homogeneous racial inheritance has given them a language, customs, and even a national dress of their own." 2 We need to look at the work of Canadian authors who have come here from different backgrounds. Connecting with our multicultural student body is really important! As Canadians, we are lost in a sea of international influences - we hardly know who we are. And we make this happen without realizing it. 'What is a Canadian? A Canadian is a fellow wearing English tweeds, a Hong Kong shirt and Spanish shoes, who sips Brazilian coffee sweetened with Philippine sugar from a Bavarian cup while nibbling Swiss cheese, sitting at a Danish desk over a Persian rug, after coming home in a German car from an Italian movie..' is an anonymous saying that practically defines the typical Canadian experience. No wonder that Margaret Atwood can comment that Canadians have issues with establishing their identity! In discussing Canadian writers, she argues that Canada as a state of mind does not really exist:

"I'm talking about Canada as a state of mind, as the space you inhabit not just with your body but with your head. It's that kind of space in which we find ourselves lost." 4

In conclusion, given this we should ignore the work of writers in other countries in order to familiarize ourselves with our own writers. While some might view this as ignorant, taking this approach will allow Canadian students to see the value of our authors. Canadian classrooms need to ignore the achievements of American and British authors at this point in time. We can return to studying them once our students have a strong sense of our own writers, culturally.

Endnotes

1 Letters in Canada p. 426 Robertson Davies

2 Robertson Davies, "Canadian Nationalism in Arts and Science", Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada(Series IV, Volume XlII, 1975), p. 35

3 Margaret Atwood, Survival, 18, 1972.

Works Cited

Letters in Canada. Robertson Davies. MacMillan Press, Toronto, 1979.

Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Margaret Atwood. McLelland and Stewart, Toronto, 1972.

Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada.(Series IV, Volume XIII). "Canadian Nationalism in Arts and Science." Davies, Robertson. The Royal Society of Canada, Ottawa: 1975.